In 2001, The Museum of Modern Art acquired 341 modernist photographs from the Thomas Walther Collection. OBJECT: PHOTO explores these brilliant photographs from the first half of the twentieth century- the most dynamic period in the development of modern photography- using a new approach: instead of concentrating on the content of the images, it considers them as objects- as actual, physical things created by particular artists using particular techniques at particular times, each with unique histories. Essays by conservators and historians of photography provide new insight into the nature of these pictures while also acknowledging the cultural importance of photography from the interwar period- as well as the rarity of its best examples. Each image is presented here in a special five-color reproduction and accompanied by an unprecedented degree of technical and historical detail, setting a new standard for the study of photography.